Beacham Owen
Born in Lynchburg, Virginia, artist Beacham Owen first learned the ins and outs of painting, printing, and publishing from his parents. His father, artist and journalist Frank Owen was city editor of the Washington Star in Washington, D.C. and later in his career, the New York Times Company. His mother, Frances Owen, artist and department head at the prestigious St. Stephen's School, encouraged Beacham's artistic talent as a young man and offered him full use of her Florida studio. In addition to receiving family guidance, he was sent to the Bradley School of Art and later to the Sarlin School in Sarasota, where he learned advanced techniques including fine-art airbrushing.
During the 70's, Beacham worked as a successful iIlustrator, art director and publisher in Florida and Southern California. Always the consummate "motorhead," he would doodle and draw cars and motorcycles for fun. As a columnist for a newspaper chain in Southern California, he interviewed Sam Posey and met Lothar Motschenbacher, Bob Bondurant, Peter Revson, Parnelli Jones and many other legendary drivers of the decade. His dream was always to introduce motorsports full time into his career.
In the early 80's, he began professionally painting and illustrating high-action motorsports scenes. He began painting in oils and acrylics on canvas, and now creates art using an airbrush technique that includes pen and ink, brushed acrylics and digital enhancement.
According to Beacham, the trick is to make the airbrush not look like typical smooth, feathered airbrush strokes.
He also says, "By combining the other mediums, more texture and roughness is accomplished, making the piece more interesting, while letting the colors really stand out."
His work has been seen in AutoWeek, Cycle World, Motorcyclist, Racer, Road & Track, Roadracing World and Sport Rider magazines. He also appeared twice on Late-Night with David Letterman.
In 1996, Beacham was commissioned by Miller Brewing Company's South Pacific distributor to paint Bobby Rahal in his MGD champ car to celebrate his finish in the Australian race. The artist has since painted the top racers in Formula One, CART, Moto GP, World Superbike and the Isle of Man TT. He also paints vintage street scenes and modern sport-touring motorcycle scenes that are very popular.
In the late 90's, he decided to get closer to the action and began racing cars in the Barber Dodge Series, then motorcycles in Formula USA/Championship Cup roadracing events. During that time, he was also part of the team that put Italy’s Mauro Cereda to a 9th-place finish at the famed Daytona 200 and later that year to win the 2001 AMA Superbike Rookie-of-the-Year Award. Beacham last raced in 2002 ending his short racing career with an expert ranking and a third-place finish for his only full season.
Beacham and his wife of 21 years, German-born artist Birgit Friedrich Owen, now reside in Southern California. They travel to shows and racing events world-wide. He creates art from his Los Angeles art studio and printing facilities, where he and his staff produce Fine-Art Giclee prints of his works and the works of other artists.
